


Gestures

by SleepyKalena



Series: His & Hers [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:03:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: Everyone shows their love differently- there are gestures here and there, like an inside joke, or a secret code word that the rest of the world isn't privy to. They know there's something there, but they generally understand that it's something only meant for the insiders.For Jyn and Cassian, their gestures were another language yet to be understood by everyone else.





	1. Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> This is the direct sequel to Tension! But worry not, readers; although they both take place in the same universe and include the same characters, these fics are meant to be standalones, and Gestures will not require context from Tension to enjoy the chapters here!

Cassian isn’t known as being particularly affectionate. This much was obvious, and everyone knew it.

So it certainly took Jyn by surprise when he kissed her, genuinely, truly, and seemingly with no purpose.

She was just folding laundry the first time it happened. He had come out of his- no, _their_ \- private refresher, ruffling his hair with his towel, before hanging it up on their designated coat rack to dry. Jyn was humming to herself, the remnants of a memory from her childhood when her mother would routinely hum the same tune as she did her chores.

Cassian had tapped her on the shoulder quietly, wordlessly, and she turned around.

That’s when he placed a gentle hand along the underside of her jaw, brushed his thumb across her soft cheek, and pulled her in for a kiss.

It was gentle and torrential all at once, and lacked the sense of hunger for sex.

It was like he was taking in fine dining in the form of her lips, all while generously feeding a crowd.

Her brain had short-circuited at how uncharacteristic it was. She couldn’t recall ever being kissed like that.

He pulled away with a smile. The crinkles at the edge of his eyes, the ones that only showed up in the uncommon instance that he smiled genuinely, slowly became baked into his face, and his eyes were lit with adoration.

Did he always look at her that way?

“Yes?” she asked, her voice slow and unsure.

The smile remained fixed on his face. “Nothing,” he responded quietly. There was a warmth in his voice that seemed to magically transfer to her face, and she felt her entire body warm her otherwise cold joints on Hoth.

He planted another kiss at the tip of her nose before turning to check the datapad on his desk. It took her a while to snap out of her confused daze and continue folding the last of their tunics.

 

She took notice of the kiss the second time around, when he came to visit her in the repair shop. The hour was late, and she insisted on staying later than usual to make sure she could make adjustments to her code replicator.

“Still working on it?” Cassian asked, his posture slackened because it was just the two of them in the sea of spare parts, tools that haven’t been properly re-racked, and oil smudges on the counters and floor.

Jyn lowered the soldering tool with a sigh. “Yeah. I know I could always get a new one, but…” she looked down at the replicator in her hands with a sense of desperation.

Cassian gave a knowing nod. She knew he knew how much sentimental value it had- it was the only thing left linking her with Saw, no matter how problematic their relationship was.

Then again, none of her relationships were without its own problems and hangups. Not even the one between her and the man in front of her, who now took a seat on the stool across from her on the work bench.

“Hey,” he said after a while of watching her tinker in silence.

She looked up at him, and he stared at her again with intensity.

She vaguely remembered that look in his eyes as the crinkles formed at the edges again, but before she could remember where she remembered it, he gestured with his hand to lean forward.

When she did, he tucked her messy bangs behind her ear and he caressed her face once again. The memory of the kiss hit her just as Cassian moved up and leaned forward to press his lips against hers.

It was just as shocking to her as the first time. The scruff of his beard scraped against her chin as his head tilted. There was a sense of strength and conviction in the way he pulled her face in more, as if he was trying to communicate something to her but couldn’t find the words to do so.

That shouldn’t have been a surprise- this is Cassian Andor, after all. He wasn’t one for superfluousness, and only spoke that way to divert attention.

The surprise lay in the fact that this kiss was superfluous in every sense of the word.

Her kisses in the past were always with a sense of a physical need. It was always about taking, rather than giving- stealing a breath, gulping down a moan, taking in a tongue.

Much like the first kiss, this one gave. And it gave and it gave and it gave and her heart felt like it would burst at any moment with how much it started to fill her. If she was honest with herself, it scared her.

Her mind panicked. What _was_ this behavior? Her brain sent a signal to her body to abort mission, to pull back, to ask Cassian what the hell he was doing or what he was thinking kissing her for so long and in such a way that demanded nothing from her. The message was sent down her spine, but her body resisted, instead sending a chill back up between her shoulders, urging her forward to press deeper into the kiss, and she let her mouth go slack with trust to let him kiss her more deeply.

She doesn’t remember standing up to allow her upper body to lean across the work bench- she was only vaguely aware that she was on her own two feet when she felt her wrists bend just a little too much from pressing herself up onto her tiptoes. By then, it was too late, she was in too deep; Cassian brought his other hand up to the other side of her face and he pressed just a little more firmly against her lips in a final blow of emotion before pulling back.

Jyn felt winded. She didn’t know how to react. The feeling was new, the kiss still certainly _felt_ new, and all the newness continued to scare her because of how confusing it was.

“Yes?” she asked again.

His smile widened slightly, and the warmth in his eyes lit up like an inferno of flames. “Nothing,” he responded, still just as sweetly as the last time, and he got up, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and walked back out to leave her to her own devices.

She couldn’t concentrate on her repairs after that, and it wasn’t for another several minutes that the heat from her blush finally left her body and the coldness of Hoth sank back into her bones.

 

By the third kiss, she started to get used to these random bursts of affection, but she still felt a hint of shyness and embarrassment from it.

He’d walked out of a debrief, and she was just passing the room. He grabbed her wrist. “Hey.”

She remembered this routine. She turned her head to look at him, the rest of her body still facing the direction she was walking previously.

He tugged on her arm slightly, and she followed him into the room that everyone had just exited.

The door slid shut and he took her in close, his hand on her lower back and his hand brushing her hair aside yet again.

“Yes?” she asked with a soft chuckle, the blush preemptively creeping up on her face. Her body already knew what to expect, yet she buried her face in his chest, too shy to look him in the eye.

“Look at me,” he whispered sweetly.

She shook her head, laughing softly. The heat on her face was becoming unbearable, and she didn’t think she could stand the full force of what she knew was coming next.

There was his hand again, the backs of his fingers brushing her hair aside for the second time, skimming her cheekbone. “Look at me,” he said again, and the last word came with a lilt, an air of question in its intonation.

As much as she felt shy about it, she caved into her urges, and she looked up.

His eyes bore into her soul, dug an opening in her heart, and she knew what was going to happen next.

He used both hands this time to bring her face up to meet his halfway, and she felt her spirits flitting when their lips made contact.

She reached from underneath, gripping his biceps near the bends of his elbow, and squeezed with firm approval.

Cassian made sure to take his time, Jyn noted vaguely, as she felt the seconds tick even more slowly than the last time he kissed her like this. She could feel the emotions burst forth from his mouth, filling her up more slowly, testing her heart’s capacity, still attempting to push the boundaries of how much of him she could take.

She was surprised yet again by this kiss, but less by its occurrence and more by the fact that her heart and soul was able to take in more of what he could give compared to the last time. It continued to give and give and give, and somehow she could continue to let his unspoken words fill her up to the brim.

He kissed her just long enough, and broke it just before her heart threatened to spill any drop of what he had to offer her with his lips.

“Yes?” she asked. Jyn was caught breathless, and she panted softly yet again at how winded he left her, but still she continued the routine.

The crinkles around his eyes again formed, a warm greeting in the cold solitude of the debriefing room. “Nothing,” he said, and left a peck on her forehead before walking out of the room to go about the rest of his agenda.

An assistant had come in, hoping to tidy up the room for the next meeting and noticed Jyn’s presence. “Are you alright, Lieutenant? You look dazed.”

That snapped her out of her reverie. “I’m fine,” she said, and she was sure the blush was still on her face as she hurried out.

She still needed a minute to re-orient herself, and nearly walked off in the wrong direction as she continued to go about her day.

 

The fourth kiss was still as much of a surprise as the first, but only in the timing. And Jyn made sure to savor every standard nanosecond of the way he made her feel when he did it.

She had just finished her morning training with Chirrut, and she was doused in sweat. A shower was starting to sound more and more like a good idea, but she needed to hurry back and get to the mess hall before serving hours had ended.

Cassian had been standing at the doorway of the training room for a while now. As Chirrut passed Cassian to leave for his quarters, Jyn could hear Chirrut hum knowingly as he walked away.

He smiled at her again, as he did last time, and the time before that (and the time before that).

She tilted her head questioningly. _Really? Now? While I’m gross and sweaty?_

The gleam in his eyes showed no desire to care about such details. His smile turned into a smirk and an exhale of amusement.

Jyn patted the sweat off her brow and neck as she got up and walked towards him. She was still fresh out of her practice of moving more fluidly, and the steps she took seemed to carry her body in a swan-like motion.

He took her into his arms, his hands gently resting at her hips as he pulled her in.

Cassian took his time taking her in, and she welcomed the blush that flooded her face this time. The intensity in his gaze came back, and she let the wave of his stare crash into her and cast her adrift in the sea of emotion.

His hands found her face again, and in one swift motion, his head dipped in once more and their lips met.

Jyn had glided over to her like a swan, but his kiss uplifted her spirits and caused her soul to take flight.

The warmth of his body and the rush of emotions raging through her body, being poured in from his lips, was a scream, like he wanted to say something he couldn’t express in words.

It finally hit her as he pulled her face even closer to his own, their noses brushing each other at their sides:

_I love you._

Slowly her hands made their way up to cup his, and she squeezed them gently. She pressed her body closer to his in response, closing what little gaps were left between them as she sandwiched him against the doorway.

He loosened his grip on her face, and it was her cue to pull back.

“Yes?” she asked, this time with a smile.

When he smiled back, the same smile as before, it shone brighter than it did any other time.

“Nothing,” he said, and he pressed his lips on her forehead again before walking off to his meeting with Draven.

Jyn didn’t need a recovery period this time- the unspoken phrase stretched her heart, made it pliable, made it more capable of receiving everything he had to give in that moment.

She hurried to the mess hall, high on the feeling.

 

Cassian couldn’t get to the fifth kiss in time.

She beat him to it.

He was chatting with Avella after concluding a meeting with Mothma and Draven, a monthly meeting that she was sure was a matter of formality than practicality, something that (rather amusingly) irked Cassian to no end.

Jyn was walking past the War Room when she saw him. She leaned against the doorway expectantly.

She saw Avella’s eyes dart to the side, towards her, and she seemed to understand Jyn’s sudden need for privacy in the spacious room.

Jyn watched Avella conclude their chit-chat and walk towards her. She placed a hand on Jyn’s shoulder and winked knowingly before leaving.

Another blush rose up at Avella’s uncanny intuition, but she was determined this time to catch him unawares, and she straightened her posture.

Cassian looked at her, a little confused.

Perfect.

She gazed longingly at him as she walked up to meet him face-to-face. Hopefully, she could exude the same intensity that he’d always given her all those times before.

He still stared at her with a bit of confusion, but as she placed her hands on either side of his face, she took pleasure at how his face morphed when it dawned on him what was going to happen next.

She stood on her tip-toes and brought his face in and their lips touched once more, but this time Jyn was the one to give and give and give.

She poured everything she could into the kiss, and as she brought his face down even closer to her own, she could feel Cassian’s jaw relax under his scruffy, scratchy beard as he acknowledged what she wanted to say back:

_I love you, too._

Time slowed again, and she only vaguely noticed. Her spirits soared, and she took him with her, carrying him under her wing.

His hands cupped her own, and he squeezed them gently before she broke the kiss.

“Yes?” he asked with a soft chuckle.

Her eyes, she was sure, twinkled like the stardust she was so lovingly nicknamed for.

“Nothing,” she said, softly kissing his forehead before turning on her heels to head towards the cargo bay to meet with Bodhi.

She passed by Kay as she walked out of the room. As she walked off, she could hear Kay’s clunky footsteps approach Cassian, followed by, “Are you alright, Cassian? You look redder and softer than usual.”


	2. Holding Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After noticing couples absentmindedly holding hands as they walk through Echo Base, Jyn attempts to understand the appeal of hand-holding.
> 
> She doesn't, and it freaks her out a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was in a mood. Will I ever get around to Tension? Yeah, I'm still working on it! I promise y'all I haven't ditched it!
> 
> Have some more fluff in the meantime :P

Holding hands get in the way. It’s a waste of resources- suddenly you’re short of a hand that you could be using to hold other things, or do more useful things. It’s a nuisance.

Or so Jyn thought when she’d see other people on base, other couples, holding hands as they walked down the halls of the cold base. Why hold hands when you could wear gloves? They’re an appropriate method of keeping warm, and no one has to risk losing their fingers from frostbite.

She believed that Cassian seemed to think as much. Even after establishing that they were indeed together as a couple, they’ve never held hands. Not like that, anyway. When they first met, it was different. They held hands out of urgency; “We need to go, Jyn,” he would tell her, grabbing her hand. And when they thought their lives were coming to a steady, swift end on Scarif, when they thought their purpose in life fulfilled and nothing more could be done, she reached out, hesitantly, needing something to grab on to in her last moments to remind herself of her accomplishments, however small and insignificant she felt they were. He reciprocated, and the comfort and reassurance was all she needed.

It was still different in the aftermath of all that; she would do the same thing to him every time their hips crashed together in bed, or when his mouth wandered down and lapped at her in her favorite places between her legs. Her hands would paw around desperately to grab his hand to squeeze, to be squeezed back, to be reminded that she’s still alive and everything she’s feeling is real.

In a more public context, however, in the carefree way that Shara and Kes would openly hold hands, for everyone to see…it just didn’t make sense. Was it a declaration? A means of showing off? It just seemed pointless to hold hands where it wasn’t necessary. Doing it that often and so openly…didn’t that just cheapen its impact over time?

Kes was holding a datapad and a stack of other documents with his free hand. The stack weighed on him, evidenced by his shifting and re-adjusting every so often as they drew closer and closer to crossing Jyn’s path. Shara, meanwhile, was holding her helmet with her own free hand.

The idea still puzzled Jyn. Why not just use both hands to hold your items and have an easier time of it? And yet they walked on, lost in conversation with each other, as if everything was just perfect, not a thread or strand of hair out of place.

But something _was_ wrong! Kes clearly had stuff to carry. Why was no one addressing this? Holding hands in this instance is a detriment!

What if your arm grew tired? What if those papers slipped out from holding the bundle of papers improperly? What if you needed to reach out for something but you were trapped by the interlinking of another person’s fingers? What if your hand just got hot and sweaty? Would you keep holding on? If your hands were cold, would you subject your lover to holding them and feeling your lack of warmth?

The questions wouldn’t leave her alone. This unexpected side-effect of being grounded Hoth for a week as part of a mandatory transitional break between missions finally started to dawn on Jyn. She just…didn’t have much to do but to wander.

So she did.

Her mind did, too.

Her eyes were so fixated on Shara and Kes, who walked further and further away from behind her, that she didn’t realize where she was walking. Suddenly her pacing was stopped by a humanoid roadblock that she collided with.

It was strong yet soft at the same time. And a bit bony.

“Doing alright, Erso?”

Jyn whipped her head around and looked up.

Cassian.

Her gaze shifted downwards in embarrassment- surely if he caught her looking dazed and confused as she felt just now, he might poke fun at her for the blush creeping up her cheeks.

She didn’t want to speak, so she only nodded.

She saw his puffy gloved fingers twitch, and her curiosity grew.

_What if…?_

He wasn’t holding anything. His hands were free. They were out in the open, standing in the icy halls of Hoth.

She stuck out an index finger at first, slowly, before the rest of her fingers followed suit, until her whole hand started to reach out.

 _What’s the appeal in holding hands?_ she wondered to herself.

“Jyn?” Cassian asked, dipping his head lower to better search her face. His voice was quieter this time, more intimate.

She withdrew her hand.

 _He wouldn’t be into holding hands like this, surely_ , she thought, and shook the thought from her mind by shaking her head as she looked back up at him. “Nothing,” she replied, and circumvented him to keep walking.

She didn’t need to turn around to know that he was probably looking at her, confused and wanting an answer.

No matter- she wouldn’t have been able to give one if she tried.

* * *

 _Maybe today,_ Jyn thought as her boots made clomping sounds down the halls towards the meeting room for her next assignment debrief.

Maybe today she’d actually try and see what it was like to hold hands in that nonsensical way that couples seem to enjoy.

Maybe today her curiosity would be fed. She could even come to enjoy it, or at least come to understand the logic.

To no one’s surprise, Cassian was already there, having arrived sooner due to an earlier meeting with Draven. Luckily, they were assigned together this time.

Jyn’s fingers drummed the top of the table as the debrief dragged on. She couldn’t stop thinking about Cassian’s hand, how it would feel to hold _just because_. Her curiosity demanded to be fed, and she felt like it was becoming more and more evident on her face as she tried hard not to fixate behind Draven to where Cassian stood, arms crossed and peering over Draven’s shoulder as he carried on with additional orders and follow-up remarks.

They journeyed through the alleyways to meet their contact on the moon they landed on, posing as a tourist couple on a food tour.

Chewing on a locally-made cake ( _Delicious!_ ), Jyn walked just slightly behind Cassian as he led them through the stalls and shops, ignoring the stray fauna that zipped past and weaved through their legs.

But there was something about the way his arms were as he walked on. It was as if his arm nearest her was reaching back a little further than the other one, checking to make sure she was actually behind her.

“I’m still behind you, Cassian,” she remarked after swallowing the cake.

He slowed his pace to turn and look at her. “Hmm? Yes, I know.”

“Then why are you reaching out for me?”

This time he stopped and looked at her curiously. “Was I?”

She decided now was a good a time as any. “Did you…want to hold hands?”

He smiled wryly. “Are you saying it because you think I want to hold hands, or because _you_ want to hold hands?”

“Are you saying you don’t want to, then?” she snapped, but it had no real bite as Cassian laughed at her.

“I think it’d be nice. We don’t really do it out in the open, do we?” he asked, already reaching out for her hand, fingers splayed open for her to clasp.

There it was- an ungloved hand, open and inviting.

She reached out with her free hand and held it, curling her fingers so that they rested on the back of his broad hand. His fingers returned the gesture, and they continued walking.

It was weird to hold his hand like this.

And, if she had to admit it, she didn’t feel anything. No spark, no sense of romance, nothing. Holding his hand didn’t even feel _cute_. In fact, the closer they came to their destination, the more her fingers were being squeezed, a sign of nervousness she wasn’t sure Cassian was even aware of.

As Cassian led her around the final corner before the meeting spot, they came across an entire line of Stormtroopers, stopping passersby for a scandoc check.

Among the passersby was their contact, whose eyes widened and jaw dropped while being restrained one of the Stormtroopers.

Jyn froze and knew that Cassian was pivoting on his own foot to walk back around the way they came, but their hand-holding caused him to twist his arm in the process, and he became tangled in her. Hurriedly, Cassian tried to break free from their grip, but Jyn’s grip was stronger than expected, possibly out of surprise at being surrounded by Imps. Jyn tried to take a few steps backwards, but with the streets being narrow from the getgo, she stumbled on children’s feet and bumped into someone’s broom and gardening supplies resting up against the wall.

The crashing, clattering sounds caused everyone in the vicinity to stop and stare at them, and it suddenly dawned on Jyn that they now had all the unwanted attention.

“THAT’S THEM!” the contact yelled with an accusing point in their direction, and Cassian had to yank his arm, _hard_ , to free his hand before breaking out into a run.

“Run, Jyn!” he said sharply as he started weaving through the narrower side alleys in hopes of scaling between buildings to get to the rooftop.

Jyn could hear a few Stormtroopers yell “Freeze! Rebel scum!” as they broke from the rest of the group to pursue them.

Shaking the squeezing pain from her hand, she followed behind Cassian and started her climb.

Hand-holding was useless.

More than useless, actually.

It lost them a few precious seconds they could’ve had fleeing from the enemy and placed a loud target on their backs.

So much for a cute romantic gesture.

* * *

Jyn would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed by the lack of a spark from holding Cassian’s hand like that.

To be fair, public displays of affection weren’t really their thing, else they’d be holding hands much more often. But there was just something… _cute_ about watching other people do it. It left her with a sense of longing. Was there, perhaps, something wrong with her if she didn’t like it as much as everyone else?

“We don’t have to hold hands in public like that if you don’t want to,” Cassian tried to explain back in their quarters after she tried (and failed) yet again to feel comfortable holding his hand while out and about in Echo Base.

“I want to, I do!” Jyn tried to explain, “But…”

He pressed a quick, comforting kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry about what other people are doing. We’re us. We have our own way. It just takes some figuring out.”

Jyn let out a breathy chuckle. “It’ll be something weird for weird people like us, right?”

“Ehh…I’d go for ‘impossibly miraculous’ if it were me.”

“As in, it’d be impossibly miraculous for us to even come up with something?”

He flicked her forehead and she recoiled with a giggle. “No, silly; I mean that our existence is impossibly miraculous. We’ve survived through the slimmest of odds, and we’re not even Jedi.”

She hummed and they fell into a comfortable silence, their foreheads pressed against each other as they sat on their bed.

Cassian rubbed his hand across the top of her thigh. Jyn closed her eyes and sighed contentedly as she basked in the warmth the friction in his palm offered.

The gentle silence was ruined, however, by the gurgling sounds of Cassian’s stomach.

Jyn’s eyes snapped open in surprise and her gaze shifted upwards to meet Cassian’s.

After a beat, Jyn’s gentle laughter filled their quarters.

“Hungry?” she teased.

Cassian pulled back looked down at his stomach in embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Alright,” Jyn said, rising from their bed, “We gotta make sure you’re fed, or else you’ll just get so skinny you’ll disappear into thin air.”

“Ha-ha,” Cassian said flatly, trying to pinch her arm in retaliation, but Jyn was too fast and she was already out the door.

As they walked down the labyrinthine halls of Echo Base side-by-side, Jyn found their arms bumping into each other constantly as they stepped out of the way for the occasional opposing foot traffic. She could hear the _swiff-swiff_ noise their arms made as they swished back and forth, their hands brushing against each other briefly, like a ghostly trail on their pinkies.

She doesn’t know how it happened, but it did. Without a word, her pinky stuck out, just slightly, as Cassian’s arm came swishing back with his next step. Still walking in step with her, looking up at the path ahead of them, their pinkies brushed, and his pinky wrapped itself around hers.

This felt…subtle. Comfortable. _Doable_.

Her hand didn’t feel trapped in his grip like they did when he tried to hold his hand the last few times- and she still had four other fingers that were free to wiggle and sway. The pinky was the smallest finger on their hands, but she felt that it was more than enough for them. It was easy to tear away (which she did in order to move behind Cassian to let a group of soldiers pass through), and just as easy to re-establish the link (which she did as she continued to walk behind him).

As they drew closer and closer to the mess hall, their pinkies still curled around each other’s, she looked up at Cassian and smiled, finally feeling at home with this gesture.

They didn’t need to hold hands to show it.

They were separate beings made stronger by being together, by being linked.

The metaphor was apt. Much like their first journey together, they found themselves within a pinky’s length of their lives, and yet here they were, alive and breathing.

They’re still here. They’re still fighting, side-by-side.

It was impossibly miraculous.

Cassian looked back at her and gave her a curious smile.

 _Yeah, this is it_ , she decided.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

Baze and Chirrut were, as usual, the first of the Rogue One crew to sit down at the mess hall. And, as usual, they sat at the table in the corner, the furthest away from most everyone else on base. They had to claim their usual spot, obviously- it was the Rogue One corner, and they didn’t want anyone intruding in on it during meal time.

(It didn’t matter that everyone knew that was the Rogue One Table, and that it was an unwritten rule on-base that no one outside the Rogue One crew could sit there during meal times. Chirrut and Baze would sit there, or Bodhi, or even K2SO himself, to claim the spot early on for each meal, depending on who remained on base that day. It was a ritual that the rest of the Alliance knew and respected.)

Chirrut drummed his fingers rhythmically and his head perked up as he sensed Jyn and Cassian entering the mess hall together.

A grin played on his face.

Baze looked at him with a curious hum, then turned to look in the general direction Chirrut was facing.

“Do you see it?” Chirrut asked.

Baze squinted slightly. “No…” he said hesitantly.

But, oh, there it was! Baze focused his vision on the sight ahead of him.

Jyn and Cassian had arrived together, pinkies locked, as they stood in line for a tray.

“Heh,” Baze chuckled. “You could sense something as small as _that_?”

“The Force is with me-“

“I will shovel food in your mouth if you finish that sentence.”

Chirrut zipped his lips, but the smile didn’t disappear.

“So they’re locking pinkies,” Baze continued, dropping his head down to take in another spoonful of food. “They’re together now; what’s the big deal?”

“Do you remember the young couple we met from Iapam who went to Jedha on holiday?”

“Before the Empire started mining us for kyber crystals?”

“Yes, back then.”

Baze paused and gave it some thought. “Yeah, what of them?”

“Do you remember their beliefs about fate?”

He nodded. It didn’t matter that Chirrut was blind; Baze knew he could sense it. “They spoke of a Iapami legend about a red string of fate that appears on the pinkies of two people who were fated to be together.”

“Yes, that very legend; the string would stretch far and wide, and possibly tangle with other threads, but it would never break.”

Baze shrugged. “So you’re suddenly interested in Iapami legends?”

Chirrut moved his hand gently over to Baze’s, his pinky brushing up against Baze’s own. Baze took it as a sign to hook his pinky around Chirrut’s.

Chirrut leaned on Baze’s shoulder, pinkies locked, and sighed happily. “I thought of it because I can see the thread between the captain and our dear little sister, clear as day, now that they’re together.”

Baze looked down at Chirrut, leaning so comfortably against him, a wistful look on his face.

He nearly brushed him off as being wonky again.

Baze’s heart beat a little bit faster, however, when a burst of energy emanated from Chirrut, and for the briefest of moments he swore he saw a red thread tied around each of their own pinkies, linking them together.

**Author's Note:**

> [find me on Tumblr](sleepykalena.tumblr.com)! come say hi. <3


End file.
